Forwarding Zeitgeist

The movie Zeitgeist came up in a discussion I was having with a friend today. If you haven’t heard of Zeitgeist, it’s a movie that has been floating around for a couple years “about alleged “social myths,” including religion, 9/11 and the banking system.” (from Wikipedia)

I told him I would forward him the link but now that I get home I feel almost irresponsible doing it. When I forward something I’m saying “I like this” or “I believe in this.” But that isn’t the case here. I think the movie is interesting, but I have doubts about some of it and don’t think it should be viewed without a critical eye. If my friend came back saying “Thank you for showing that to me it really opened my eyes.” I would feel like I misled him.

I tried to forward it with links to a couple sites that attempt to debunk it. But many of those seemed to have their own agendas and again, I couldn’t find the right ones to give a good balanced background.

I’ve been thinking about how we ingest information and what questions we ask. We all try to check the validity against our intuition.

Why forward it at all you might ask? Well he had a talk with someone recently about the 9/11 attacks and had been considering if the government may have been involved. Zeitgeist has a whole section on this. I think this is a useful documentary because it is powerful and seems convincing on it’s own. But if you are questioning and researching, you see the holes. The process of finding the holes in these claims, might help him see the holes in what he was told.

And that is something I am looking forward to people doing more of. Questioning what we hear, and talking about those questions. I think people are going to be doing that more with more information available on the web.

In the end, I’ll send it to him. With a warning that he should be looking deep for holes. I’ll send a couple links along of sites with alternate opinions. Quote 2 or so specific points so he can see a counter with good evidence. Hoping to open up a new fold in the movie while he watches it.

One thought on “Forwarding Zeitgeist”

i constantly struggle with the problem of misrepresenting myself when trying to work through an idea with someone else. (expressing my opinion about something without it seeming like a concrete view on my part, leaving it open for change and evolution.) i shy away from throwing out those disclaimers, or in your case putting an idea out there without several ideas that show the opposite. but at least the talking about something is still there!